The translucent tower walls illuminate the shaft and
elevators, with added illumination and hints of views provided by
transparent glass slots in the tower walls.

The design of the Arp Museum represents the seamless integration
of the building's spectacular site with the museum's mission to
showcase the work of the Dadaist Master Hans Arp and his
circle.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

One of the unique features of the region in which the museum is
located is the series of medieval castles that line a 35-mile
stretch of the river Rhine. The Arp Museum, sited on a wooded
escarpment overlooking the Rhine, is intended to respond to and
echo the forms of these captivating relics.

Photo: Roland Halbe

The structure's entry sequence does not begin in the museum
proper, but rather at the base of the bank-side mountain, in the
old village railway station, used since the 1960s as an exhibition
space. The lowest level of the station functions as the main
entrance to the new museum building, which is reached only
gradually by a series of carefully modulated tunnels and shafts
that burrow into and up through the mountain to the new
building.

The first of these subterranean sequences begins from this
lobby, which leads to a 40 meter long tunnel, illuminated by two
continuous bands of light, that extends below ground under the
railway tracks to an exhibition pavilion that stands independent of
the main museum building.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

The modest pavilion features polished concrete floors and a
discreet slotted skylight; aside from providing ancillary temporary
exhibition space, the pavilion also establishes a sense of
expectation and uncertainty that is further reinforced by the next
sequence, which materializes as another subterranean tunnel, this
time 35 meters long and terminating at the bottom of a dramatic
40-meter-high shaft with access to two glass-enclosed
elevators.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

These elevators ascend through the shaft to a conical tower
structure above grade. Here the translucent tower walls illuminate
the shaft and elevators, with added illumination and hints of views
provided by transparent glass slots in the tower walls. At the
tower's apex the elevators open onto a 16-meter-long,
glass-enclosed bridge which represents the final stage of the
sequential promenade into the museum.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

The entry to the museum's ground floor is flanked to the right
by a freestanding staircase leading to the lower and upper levels
and to the left by a void overlooking the lower-level lobby. In
addition to the lobby, which offers visitors an opportunity for
rest and repose, the lower level features a classroom,
administrative offices, service facilities, and access for shipping
and receiving art. In fact, the oversized service elevator,
designed to facilitate the movement of art, also functions as the
visitors' elevator and provides a galvanizing core around which the
gallery spaces on the ground and upper floors are organized.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

More specifically, at the ground level these spaces include two
large galleries with access to two terraces, as well as a smaller
enclosed gallery.

The spaces on the upper floor are distributed in the same manner
as on the ground floor; however, rather than opening onto terraces,
the two large galleries on the upper floor occupy a seemingly
free-floating platform supported by columns so that they overlook
the ground floor galleries at the east and west edges.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

The two main upper-level galleries are illuminated from above by
a ceiling composed almost entirely of glazing, with a series of
2-foot-wide adjustable aluminum louvers providing complete daylight
or daylight modulated with artificial light. A similar, though
immobile, louver system occupies the double-height glazed facade
facing the Rhine, opening the museum to breathtaking views of the
surrounding valley.

Photo: Roland Halbe

Photo: Roland Halbe

Designed to accommodate a unique collection of work by Hans Arp
and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, together with works by members of their
immediate circle, the museum's collection includes a wide variety
of art objects including sculpture, drawings, paintings and
textiles.